Post by StevePulaski on Jun 7, 2017 14:45:49 GMT -5
Watermelon Man (1970)
Directed by: Melvin Van Peebles
Directed by: Melvin Van Peebles
Godfrey Cambridge's Jeff Gerber goes from a Caucasian man to an African-American man in Watermelon Man.
Rating: ★★★
Melvin Van Peebles' Watermelon Man concerns Jeff Gerber, a middle class, Caucasian suburban father played by African-American comedian Godfrey Cambridge. He lives in with his wife Althea (Estelle Parsons) and their two children, despite Jeff's often off-color, offensive remarks about blacks in America. Jeff's racially tinged convictions and prejudiced mindset comes out before bed when his wife watches the race riots on television, accentuating the loud and boorish attitude most others see in Jeff other than his wife.
Jeff, who tans his skin on a daily basis, wakes up one morning to find that the pigment of his skin as changed into a dark black, to the point where he unmistakably looks like a person of color. The change in skin-tone likely came from a new tanning bed he had just purchased, which he managed to alter just a bit using such ingredients like soy sauce during the tanning process in order to produce a noticeable darker appearance - just not this dark. Jeff is horrified, spending a full day in a hot shower trying to erase his newly darkened skin, while his ostensibly accepting wife is equally disgusted by Jeff's new appearance and begs he finds a way to erase it or wash it off.
"I'm not militant, I'm white, I expect it to be immediate," screams Jeff when his wife tells him to soak his skin in a tub of water in the meantime. When his wife provides him with numerous creams in hopes to lighten his skin back to normal, he frustratingly remarks, "these creams don't work, no wonder negroes riot!" Although we only see his kids' reactions to their father's new look only briefly, they are far less concerned than their parents, simply stating how their father looks different before moving on to the day's activities.
Van Peebles' film wears its heart and focus on its shoulder, unafraid to say what's on its mind and even point out the ways in which people, particularly white liberals, cry tolerance and preach acceptance yet still cross the street rather with a brisk fast-walk the second they see an African-American man coming in their direction. At times an intense allegory on the way society views African-Americans, and at others, a racial parable that, as shown above, finds itself darkly comic and quotable, Watermelon Man demonstrates the strengths of the fearless side of Van Peebles as a director.
In the context of present day, Watermelon Man has a lot in common with the kind of skit you'd see on Saturday Night Live, just not as overplayed and more humorous. In the context of the time it was released, in the year 1970, just slightly after the Civil Rights era, which was still being fought and challenged in some parts of the country, the film was a break from a lot of the dippy blaxploitation films of the period. Van Peebles has made a career out of going where the puck wasn't in terms of the filmmaking landscape, and by doing so with Watermelon Man, he makes a film that's meant to shock the weak and, more importantly, resonate with anyone who sees it. Despite the black-and-white race-relations present at the film's core, its approach and subtext is as democratic as can be for this kind of material.
The only times Watermelon Man missteps are when it seems unsure if it's driven its point home effectively enough, which is the cause for some saccharine preachiness about loving thy neighbor. Van Peebles is wise, however, to enlist in the comic and performing talents of Godfrey Cambridge, who is predictably a much more successful presence as an African-American man than he is a pasty, only halfway believable white man. Material like this is ripe for being overplayed or broadly drawn, but Van Peebles and Cambridge exercise restraint in making the story too mawkish. Cambridge and his quips also round out the film from being a laughless morality play rather than something that can be enjoyed as a rallying cry for equality in addition to a light-hearted comedy with race as the main punchline.
Watermelon Man feels a lot like the precursor film to Soul Man, an underrated comedy from 1986 starring E.T.'s C. Thomas Howell as an Ivy League hopeful whose tanning pills wind up turning the pigment of his skin dark enough for him to pass off as African-American. The film follows his life of wealth being turned upside down into one of confrontation and suspicion wherever he goes. The two films are very similar, with Watermelon Man being a lot funnier and Soul Man having more subtle, less cheeky commentary. If there's one thing that's constant, it's the fact I would take a franchise of these socially relevant films before I see another body-swapping/age-shifting movie.
Starring: Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, and Howard Caine. Directed by: Melvin Van Peebles.